Palestine activists are working overtime to win the propaganda war against Israel, including by paying so-called ‘bot farms’ to manipulate trends on Twitter/X.
Britain’s Campaign Against Antisemitism organisation has revealed that this activity, which employs automated programs to generate fake online activity, has resulted in the phrase “Famine in Gaza” becoming the number one trending hashtag on X timelines.
Explaining how this works, the group pointed to hundreds of phoney accounts posting phrases totally unrelated to the Israel-Hamas conflict—for example, “never underestimate the power of a good book and a cozy blanket on a cold day”—but also featuring the anti-Israeli hashtag, until “the hashtag reaches number one and real users weigh in.” It added that
Some bots are operated by state actors to pursue an agenda, but today’s bots are just bots for sale which post about anything.
Someone just hired a bot farm to make #Famine_in_Gaza the number one trending hashtag on your timeline right now.
How do we know that bot farms are being used to influence public opinion in the UK? Here’s how it works. 🧵 1/10 pic.twitter.com/vhvb9Rdf1E
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) July 18, 2025
This activity is not allowed on X, but those behind successful campaigns have clearly found a way to skirt around the rules. Many real social media users responded to the Campaign’s report asking X CEO Elon Musk to get on top of the issue.
Bot farming has also seen phrases like “Help Gaza” and “Gaza Holocaust” climb to the top of users’ feeds.
The emergence of these bot farms has coincided with increasing anti-Israeli sentiments within European governments and with a surge in antisemitism within their populations. Indeed, there appears now to be no better place to sow hatred than on social media, which serves as the primary source of ‘news’ for many across the continent and elsewhere.
Analysis has also found videos created by artificial intelligence shared on social media to sway minds on the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East—for example, “boasting of Iran’s military capabilities.”
Israel has also employed social media bots to advance their aims, including a secret influence campaign targeting U.S. lawmakers and civilians to rally support for its war in Gaza shortly after Hamas’ October 7th, 2023 terror attacks. According to The New York Times, The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs—a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel—commissioned the operation, investing $2 million and hiring a political marketing firm, Stoic, to execute the campaign across social media platforms.
Using AI tools, hundreds of fake accounts posing as pro-Israel Americans were created on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube. ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot, was used to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English-language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles.
Israeli officials told The New York Times that the covert operation initially recruited tech-savvy Israelis as “warriors for Israel” to run digital campaigns backing the war. In 2021, Israel’s military used a similar secret influencing campaign to drum up support—at that point domestically—for the then-ongoing 11-day war on Hamas in Gaza. After the Israeli newspaper Haaretz disclosed the operation, the military “acknowledged” that it made a “mistake,” according to the Associated Press.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
